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President Trump’s hard-line campaign to limit immigration has undercut his own tough-on-crime agenda, law enforcement officials said, by worsening major delays in a visa program that is intended to help the police pursue violent criminals.

The U visa program, created in 2000, offers undocumented immigrants temporary legal residency and a path to American citizenship if they cooperate with law enforcement officials after being a victim or a witness to violent crimes, among them domestic violence and sexual assaults.

But under the Trump administration, the federal program is facing the biggest backlog in its history, officials said, meaning that immigrants could be deported as they wait for their visas. Last year, fewer immigrants applied for the visas — the first annual decline since 2007 — in what law enforcement officials and lawyers called a sign that immigrants were growing wary of helping the police and prosecutors. Read more....